


you and me and the suspect in the backseat

by carained



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-29
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2019-01-06 18:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12216894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carained/pseuds/carained
Summary: Valkyrie tries to glare, still laying on the ground. She feels it’s very intimidating, but Skulduggery just tilts his head at her, so it’s probably not working. Damn.





	you and me and the suspect in the backseat

**Author's Note:**

> i'm three books behind but i still love these two

“Wow.”

“Shut up.”

Skulduggery turns to the anxious looking woman next to him--their client--and sighs.

“It’s sad, really. You’d have thought she would have grown out of this when puberty stopped making her gangly and awkward, but no. She’s eighty three years old-- _eighty three_ \--and she still trips over her own feet.”

Valkyrie tries to glare, still laying on the ground. She feels it’s very intimidating, but Skulduggery just tilts his head at her, so it’s probably not working. Damn.

“You know, I only married her out of pity. There’s something oddly endearing about her tenacity in face of how incredibly clueless and clumsy she is. She’s like...” 

He snaps his fingers, sounding delighted.

“A rash! You’re a rash, dear, one that grows on you and is so tenacious that no amount of medical nor magical knowledge will get rid of it.”

Valkyrie keeps staring at the ceiling from her place on the ground. She grumbles in a dignified way.

“Feeling very loved right now. You insulting me is almost as good as you asking if I’m alright.”

He tilts his head another way.

“Of course you’re alright. You’ve fought gods and lived, no rug with a crease in it is going to do you in. It’s the tenacious rash in you.”

He extends a gloved palm to her.

“Would you like to get up now, or are you going to keep pouting on the floor? I don’t mean to interrupt, but we do have a case to solve. And the rug looks scratchy.” 

Valkyrie takes his hand. Partly because he’s right about the rug and her neck is beginning to itch, partly because she personally thinks she’s coming close to overdoing the “laying on the ground” bit.

Their client looks nothing short of bewildered.

“Is--is it always like this?” She asks, while leading them to her murdered husband’s study.

“No,” Valkyrie says, while Skulduggery nods a solemn “yes”. 

“I’ve heard so much about the both of you, I just didn’t expect you to…”

“Trip?”

He probably thinks he’s being helpful or funny. Most likely, he thinks he’s being both. Valkyrie grins despite herself.

“...be so flippant.”

“Well, most detectives aren’t.”

“Most detectives hate us,” Valkyrie adds, chipper.

“They do.”

“Probably because we’re better at solving cases. Possibly because of how we solve cases while making fun of them.”

Skulduggery nods again, and Valkyrie thinks for a moment before she brightens.

“Oh! And authority figures. Those people also hate us, just as a general rule.”

“That is true.”

“And bad guys!”

Their client is staring at the both of them now, and Valkyrie feels bad about missing her name. She sort of hopes Skulduggery will casually drop it into conversation before she’s expected to use it. 

“Who _do_ you get along with?”

“Each other. Our very eclectic, very small circle of friends.”

Valkyrie shrugs and tries to look humble.

“My school counselor said I had a very strong personality.”

It’s supposed to be an explanation, or maybe an apology, but it’s ruined when Skulduggery nods and says “My school counselor said the same thing,” and Valkyrie starts giggling. Skulduggery glances at her, probably disapprovingly, before he lays a gloved hand on their client’s shoulder and puts his sympathetic voice on thick.

“Imiriha--”

There’s her name. Thank god. 

“I sincerely apologize for my partner’s unprofessionalism. Sadly, learning from the best can only go so far when the pupil is…” He makes a vague hand gesture at Valkyrie. She rolls her eyes and inclines her head towards the nearby door.

“Was this your husband’s study, Imiriha?”

Imiriha blinks, surprised by the change in subject, but nods. 

“Yes, that is… that _was_ where Ashan did his work. Feel free to…”

Her face crumples as she trails off, and this time the sympathy in Skulduggery’s voice sounds sincere rather than overdone.

“We can take it from here. Thank you for all your help.”

Imiriha looks like she’s going to say something, but remains silent, staring at the floor. Eventually, she clears her throat. Her voice still comes out wobbly.

“I’ll be…” She gestures down the hall to another door--presumably her room--before she turns that way and leaves. Valkyrie doesn’t miss the way she presses her hand to her mouth to prevent a sob. The door clicks shut behind her, and Valkyrie grimaces. 

“God, I hate that bit.”

“People?”

“Grief. I never know what to say, or what to do with my hands.”

“Her husband of 70 years was murdered a week ago. I don't think she cares too much about your hands.”

That’s probably true. Valkyrie grunts her acknowledgement and starts skimming one of the bookshelves lining the room.

“I just still don’t know what to say. I mean, we’ve seen a lot of murders. And the murders themselves I don’t really mind, but the friends… the family… How do you tell someone you don’t know that it’s alright that someone they loved is never coming back?”

Skulduggery unceremoniously pulls a drawer out of the desk sitting in the corner and dumps it on the floor, peering at the contents.

“I’ve always heard ‘Tell them what you would want to hear’ for those situations.”

Valkyrie scoffs. She thinks about Skulduggery being gone, about being on the receiving end of platitudes about better places and celebrating life rather than mourning death. Mostly, she thinks about the anger that threatens to bubble over at the thought of someone taking Skulduggery away permanently, and how little she would care about being comforted and coddled with hushed voices and “sorry for your loss”s. Her voice is hard.

“I wouldn’t want to hear _anything_. I’d want kill anyone remotely responsible, and then I _would_ kill anyone remotely responsible, and then I’d be the first person to successfully fully resurrect someone.”

Skulduggery doesn’t look at her, but she can hear his small smile.

“Lofty goals. But if anyone’s stubborn enough to beat death when thousands have failed, it’s you.”

She takes that as the compliment it is, and silently thanks Skulduggery for not pointing out they both know she’s talking about him. The imaginary anger at Skulduggery’s imaginary murderer dissipates as she reminds herself Skulduggery is ten feet away from her, entirely fine, occasionally mumbling to himself as he searches. She comforts herself with the thought that it would only take a few steps to reach him and pull him into a hug. He’d be startled, arms awkwardly outstretched, but it would only take a second for him to relax into it and wrap his arms around her. No doubt he’d be bemused, asking what brought the surge of affection on. She could tell him, or she could not, but either way he’d briefly press his skull to her forehead in his approximation of a kiss and hold her for a moment. Sure, he’d eventually end the moment by making a quip about them getting back to work, but he wouldn’t be him if he didn’t. 

She doesn’t do any of that, because knowing is just as good. Besides, she wants to finish the research leg of this investigation as fast as possible in order to get to the running after bad guys part. 

A comfortable silence settles over them while doing their individual searches, only occasionally broken when they point out something they’ve found that is possibly odd and possibly important. Many possible leads later, they find a hidden scrap of paper with the words “Call Sabral” hastily scrawled on it. That too, seems like a dead end, with no last name and no recognition from Imiriha. A quick call to the Sanctuary, however, tells them Sabral Saim was reported missing two days after Imiriha’s husband was found dead. 

\---

The landlady is helpful.

“Quiet man, kept to himself. Said he was a transformation Adept. Never mentioned his job, but as long as he was paying every month, I didn’t care how he was getting it. But a few days ago I went to ask him about rent, and he didn’t answer the door. That’s about as common as you think.”

She snorts.

“Like I don’t have copies of their keys and records of their names and everything else.”

“How long before you checked on him again?”

“I gave him a few more days. It was the first time he was late, and he was one of the better tenants, so I thought he deserved a little bit of time. But when I went back again, he was gone and the place was ransacked.”

This time, she spits, which strikes Valkyrie as both a gross and odd thing to do in your own building. 

“Now he’s missing. Missing men stay missing, and they don’t come back to pay rent or damages. Should have made his sister pay before she went up, now that I think about it.”

Skulduggery masterfully feigns disinterested surprise.

“His sister is here?”

“Aye. Or she was twenty minutes ago. You want to question her, feel free. She’s still in 13D--his apartment--far as I know.”

“Thank you,” Skulduggery says, polite smile evident in his voice, “you’ve been very helpful.”

He starts making his way down the hall, Valkyrie at his heels. Once they’ve turned a corner to the stairwell and the landlady is out of sight, Valkyrie glances at Skulduggery. 

“Transformation Adept with a “sister” who shows up to go through his things?”

“So you did pick up on that.”

A beat, before they take off up the stairs as fast as they can. In the best case scenario, Sabral is masquerading as his sister and they can confront him and take him into custody in the next hour. Sabral’s sister actually being his sister would be a little more inconvenient, but being able to talk to her would still be helpful. All of that means Valkyrie’s calves are burning at floor seven when they still have five more to run up. 

The door is slightly ajar when they get there, and Skulduggery makes a point out of pushing it all the way open with the butt of his gun. 

There’s a woman on her knees frantically searching through a pile of documents in the middle of the floor, wild in the eyes. She immediately shoots up when she spots the two of them.

“Hi,” Skulduggery says brightly, “Lovely place.”

Valkyrie makes a noncommittal noise.

“It could do with some work.”

“Not all of us inherit the mansions of millionaires, darling.”

“It’s not a mansion thing! It’s not. It’s about being tidy.”

“Says the woman who regularly sleeps in a pile of laundry she forgot to put away.”

“My _floor_ is neat, though. No papers or weird artifacts thrown about. That’s what I meant.”

The woman’s gaze darts from the door to Valkyrie to Skulduggery’s gun, which audibly clicks as he turns off the safety. 

“Didn’t catch your name. Sabrala, maybe? The fault of uncreative parents?”

She lunges at a window, but is intercepted by Valkyrie blocking her way and pulling out a pair of handcuffs, which she dangles from one hand.

“Do you want to skip straight to arrest, or do you want to throw in some punching first? My favorite’s the second option, but most of the suspects we bring in are partial to the first.”

The woman lunges again, trying to get past Valkyrie, but is blocked. Again. It’s disappointingly easy to get cuffs on her. She doesn’t even try to make an escape as they walk back to the car, just silently slides into the backseat, defeated. Valkyrie grins.

“I made the arrest, I get to pick the music for the ride to the Sanctuary.”

“It’s not going to be _Pop_ , is it?”

“It’s going to be Carly Rae and you’re going to enjoy it.”

Skulduggery shakes his head and starts the car.

“My dear, your music taste is not one of your positive attributes.”

“Aw. You think I have positive attributes.”

“Of course I do. Your ability to make me look incredible in comparison is astounding.”

She pauses from where she’s fidgeting with the radio dial.

“Okay, one, I have great attributes. Like hitting stuff. I’m great at hitting stuff! I hit stuff so great and so often it’s saved your life _multiple_ times. Two, I’m funny. I’m like the only person in the world who can get you to do that head tilt thing that you swear isn’t smiling but is totally smiling. I’m also the only person in the world who can listen to you talk for more than 15 minutes without screaming. So. Good at fighting, saved your life, hilarious, listens to you monologue. That’s four things. Oh, and I’m hot.”

“ _Hot_ is a crude way to put it, but you’re not the only one who’s attractive. I have good cheekbones.”

“And only cheekbones. I have good cheekbones _and_ skin that goes over them.”

He sniffs.

“No need to brag about it.”


End file.
